Through MRIs, psychiatrists can see specific structural differences in the brains of people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
[3] In treating the bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, there are several paths that psychiatrists and psychologists take, some are similar and others are different.
[4][5][6] However, there are a few conflicts regarding the medical and therapeutic treatments considering the long-term affects and relapse issues in treating both disorders.
Evidence from numerous family and twin studies indicates a shared genetic etiology between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
[7][8] Researchers found a combined heritability for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia of approximately 60%, with environmental factors accounting for the remainder.
[9] To be exact, patients with schizophrenia lose the volume of the grey matter in both hemispheres of the brain specifically in the left thalamus and the right caudate.
The only region in which the volume increases for gray matter is within the right cerebellum,[10][9] an area that contributes to the cognitive, affective, perceptual, and other deficits seen in schizophrenia.
[11] MRI studies found that schizophrenia is associated with significantly smaller amygdala volume compared to healthy controls.
[10] However, some research has observed that patients with mood disorders had abnormalities including cortical tissue and subcortical regions of brain.
Left anterior lesions, whether cortical or subcortical predicts high level of depression in patients suffering from mood disorders.
Both the left cortical and subcortical showed a significant relationship between the severity of depression and the location of the lesion in regard to the frontal lobe.
[9] Most treatments are designed to control symptoms and make them more tolerable due to low rates of complete remission for both disorders and poorly understood and under-researched change mechanisms.
[2][4] Common side effects of antipsychotic medications include dry mouth, weight gain, drowsiness, and constipation.